Chasing Stars
by BlackCatFullMoon
Summary: 'Winona Kirk closed her eyes, and for the first time, she saw stars dancing across her eyelids. ' Warning: Character death. Kind-of-spoilers. Same universe as 'Entire Galaxies in His Eyes', you really don't have to read it but I'd like it if you did *Bats eyelashes*


**My second Star Trek fic! Woot Woot!  
So my sister challenged me to do a fic where I had to slip in the words 'Chasing Stars' more than three times, without annoying people. I always liked Winona Kirk, so this is me trying to rationalise her in my head...a little. Hence, this was born.**

**I think I've fallen into a star-theme with the Kirks now. Look up 'Entire Galaxies in His Eyes' if you want to see what I mean.  
Again-I wish I owned, but I would have screwed it up so...it's for the best.  
Enjoy!**

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**Chasing Stars**

George, Winona remembered fondly, had always seen stars everywhere.

His world was made up of stars, spinning across his mind like a kaleidoscope, whispering in his ear, entreating him to join them in the deep, quiet black of space.

He'd close his eyes, he told her once, and there they were-dancing across his eyelids, cartwheeling, whirling, twirling, wrapping around his heart and pulling him up into the unknown.

Stars had always fascinated him, called to him, so it only made sense that he joined Starfleet.

Winona was never like that. She saw stars yes, but only in two places-in the sky and in George Samuel Kirk's eyes.

She would follow George Kirk where he went, because she was a restless spirit who always wanted more and she found that, and serenity, in George and his eyes.

Winona fell in love with those unfathomable blue eyes first, filled with stars and brighter than the summer sky, so clear and deep and filled with possibilities.

She'd look into his eyes and see the whole universe in all it's glory stretched out before her, shining and wonderful, and it hypnotised her.

Sam hadn't inherited those eyes, but Jim had. Jim was gifted with bright blue eyes full of stars and promise.

Winona knew that if she tried, she could look into her son's eyes and see a mirror of the constellations in their depths, but she never looked.

It hurt too much.

Because she'd see her husband's eyes and her husband's smile staring up at her, and she'd remember his soft laugh and gentle hands and find her heart breaking all over again.

It made it hard to spend time with Jim, who looked up at the sky with the same wonder George had, who drank up stories of the last, final frontier with awe scrawled across his face.

Winona loved her son, she did. He was the last gift her husband had ever given her, the last thing she had of George but that somehow made it all the harder. And she did try at first to be a mother-she did. She tried so _hard_ but Jim...  
Jim was a constant reminder of that day, of the USS Kelvin lighting up the black and her husband's voice, tinny and far away and crackly over the comm. With George died her serenity and, well, she always was a restless spirit, never could stay still.

So Winona did the only thing she could do.

She ran.

She ran back to Starfleet and flew into Deep Space and lied and told herself that the money she made would give her sons the best schooling, the best chance at life, the best opportunities She told herself that Space needed a Kirk and she was the only one who could, it was what George would have wanted. She felt close to George, bur far enough away to not feel to guilty about leaving her boys behind.

Winona was a liar by trade, and she was best at lying to herself.

So she lied and she flew away, chasing the stars she'd seen in her his eyes, and her boys grew up and screwed up and Winona didn't even realise how much she'd missed until she heard Jim had saved the world.

Like father like son, Winona supposed.

Too ambitious for their own good, with a head filled with stars and nonsense and ambition and big dreams and both too proud, to damned _proud_, both happiest in the black.

So Winona contacted her boy, and even though the holo dimmed the blue of his eyes-her George's eyes-Winona could still see the starry spikes that she had seen in George's, twinkling and twirling and spinning.

He was a_ Captain_, and when he told her that with George's smile on his face, Winona broke inside.

George had been a Captain.

George had been an amazing Captain, and he'd smiled and she had seen stars in his eyes and-

Winona loved her boy, she really did, but she couldn't, she just _couldn't. _

Not when she saw George staring back at her, in Jim's smile and his eyes and his laugh-oh_ God_ his laugh...

When had he grown up? Why did he look so much like George?

Winona had stuck to sending Jim messages after that.

Easier, almost painless, and she could detatch herself from the fact that this was her son and pretend for a second that maybe-just maybe-she'd find peace at her next stop, maybe she'd finally find those stars she was looking for and in them find redemption or forgiveness.

She never did.

Winona Kirk was a restless soul, always had been. Never could keep still, not until she met George Kirk and then he whisked her off to space and she saw the stars of space, similar but not the same as the stars in her husband's eyes.  
George was the only thing that could anchor her to anyone or anything.  
But George had been dead for years, and Winona had been running away from her sons for almost as long, and at Winona's age, you start to realise you can't run forever.

Even if you were chasing stars.

Even if you were as wild and restless as Winona Kirk.

So when the_ USS Invictus_ was attacked by a Klingon warship, she knew, deep down, that her days of chasing stars, her days of running, were over.

But Jim was doing a fine job of it himself on his_ Enterprise_.

Jim was chasing stars and holding them in his hands, capturing their light in his Kirk-blue eyes, defending the Federation with a cocky grin and a silver ship and that arrogant confidence that _had_ to come from the Kirk side of the family, because even George was a touch arrogant sometimes.

There should always be a Kirk up in space, to cradle the universe in loving hands and look on every star with wonder.

Winona had tried, for her husband's sake, to do just that, to expand horizons and leave behind a legacy worthy of the Kirk name, but she was old and tired and she missed George and space had a new Kirk now.  
A better one.  
One who had stars in his eyes and a smile spun from sunshine, who blazed through the sky like a comet, who had the indomitable Kirk spirit that Winona wished she had.

Maybe she would have stayed, if she'd had that spirit. Maybe she would have stayed to watch her youngest become the amazing man he was today, maybe Sam wouldn't have run away.

Oh Sam...

Winona heard the screams and alarms, smelt melting metal and felt a stab of fear.  
She wanted her husband.

She wanted sleep and rest because after nearly thirty years she was so _tired_ but most of all she wanted her husband to forgive her for not loving their sons enough to stay, for loving him too much to look into his eyes and see them in the face of a child.

So she lay there on the floor, and holoed one of her forgotten children.

She needed to see his eyes, one last time.

She needed George Kirk's eyes-full of the universe and promise and love-even if they were in the fact of another.

Her son's hair was sleep-mussed and his clothes rumpled but his _eyes_...

Her son was a Captain, he'd saved the world twice and was on a five-year mission. He was proud and cocky but he cared for his crew and he was a good man, and that was really all Winona could ask for.

She was never there, and she should have been and all the things she missed chasing stars across the sky...

No matter, it was too late for that, too late for regrets. Despite everything, her husband's last gift had made it to where he belonged.  
So she told him she loved him, and he mumbled it back, still half-asleep and more than a little confused.

In those words, in his achievments and those Kirk-blue eyes she found her redemption.  
The redemption she hadn't found in all of her years of chasing stars.

Maybe not forgiveness, but redemption...redemption would be enough.

Winona Kirk closed her eyes, and for the first time, she saw stars dancing across her eyelids.

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**I'm not...entirely happy with this one. Review me and give me your opinions!  
I want to do more Winona pieces in the future...maybe...  
Anyway, tell me what you thought and check out 'Entire Galaxies in His Eyes' please, make my day. **

**-BCFM**


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